From the White House, the Capitol, and everywhere else in official Washington, Milbank’s observations document the sights, sounds and frequently noxious smell of politics in America.

Milbank's Washington coverage draws from the parliamentary sketches traditional to British newspapers. But he has built on that tradition to create a new form of journalism suited to a new age. His vivid sketches give his zealous online and print followers the sense that they are in the room. His columns are always sharp and often funny but never ideological. In a partisan world, Milbank is a nonpartisan observer, holding Democrats and Republicans alike to account for their behavior.

With an acute eye for the telling detail and a sense for the rituals and absurdities of the capital, Milbank approaches Washington politics as an anthropologist would examine a strange culture, eyeing the tribal customs. Working from the premise that Americans deserve better from their government, he lampoons the self-important, the incompetent and the dangerously ideological on all sides. As the government proves itself unable to address the nation's most pressing problems, he tells us who is to blame.

Milbank joined The Washington Post at the beginning of the 2000 presidential campaign as a political writer in the Style section. He later covered President Bush's first term and the 2004 election as a White House correspondent on the Post's National staff. During that time he won the White House Correspondent Association's Beckman award for his "probing glimpses" that "exemplified the fourth estate's role as watchdog" and was named one of the nation's top political journalists by Columbia Journalism Review. And in 2007, his columns earned the National Press Club's Gingras prize for humor writing.

Before coming to the Post, Milbank was a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, working as a foreign correspondent in the London bureau and as a congressional correspondent in the Washington bureau. He was a senior editor of The New Republic for two years and has written for The New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine and other publications. He has been a political analyst for MSNBC and a CNN contributor. He has written two books, the national best-seller “Homo Politicus” (Doubleday, 2008) and “Smashmouth” (Basic Books, 2001), in addition to an illustrated collection of rhymes, “O is for Obama” (Triumph, 2009) and a forthcoming book about Glenn Beck.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews called Milbank "a wonder at the anthropology of this town and [at] understanding the way the sociology of Washington works today." Potomacflacks.com said, "Washington PR folks, who would normally auction off their right arm to get the Washington Post to cover their boss' press conference, know by now that having Dana Milbank show up is probably more of a curse than a blessing.”

Milbank is a graduate of Yale University, where he received his B.A. cum laude in political science. He lives in Washington with his wife and daughter.